SUBJECT MATTER

I’ve never truly been starving
and I’ve never slept on park
benches whilst scribbling
poems in the margins of
discarded newspapers with a
broken pencil,
I haven’t lived with whores
or junkies or had fist-fights
with brutal fuckers in wet
drunken alleyways and I’ve
never really gambled the
horses or handed over cash
for sex,
I wasn’t in Nam or the Gulf
War or any other fucking
military conflict,
I’ve never been imprisoned
for criminal convictions of
armed robbery or drug
possession/dealing,
so I won’t be writing poems
about that kind of shit,
but I hope this poem will
be okay for your publication.

John D Robinson was born in 63 in the UK; his poems have appeared widely in the small press and online literary journals including; Rusty Truck; Red Fez; Hobo Camp Review; Rats Ass Review; Down In The Dirt; Yellow Mama; Outsider Poetry; Chicago Record; Horror Sleaze and Trash; BoySlut; In Between Hangovers; He is a contributing poet to the 2016, 48th Street Press Broadside Series.